Dance accounting – Karmiel Dance Festival 2019

The Karmiel Dance Festival has come and gone. I was able to attend two performances, one being a potpourri of international troupes, whose actual names we were never mentioned. They came from Mexico, Brazil, Serbia, Turkey, Russian and China (as well a local group of Yemenite dancers). Each performed two dances. Like all good smorgasbords, while all came were good, I did not enjoy each one equally. The interesting aspect, in retrospect, is the reasons for my preferences.

The groups from Mexico and Brazil both performed long couple suites. The costumes were colorful and flowing while the music had a nice dancing pace. However, the dancers from Mexico were energetic and enthusiastic. Their faces expressed the joy they felt in dancing.  Couple dancing is fundamentally erotic foreplay.  In their case, I could imagine them celebrating the dance in private. By contrast, the Brazilian group seemed distant from the audience and each other, with a few exceptions.  In my mind, good dancing goes beyond technical skill and must involve getting into the spirit of the music.

Two Balkan (in the dance meaning of the word) dance groups appeared. As I have been dancing such dances for over 40 years, I can say that the Serbian and Turkish troupes were both very authentic in both costumes and style. Regarding the latter, the steps are small, precise and often quite quick, which is deceiving simple to execute. Yet, I had a strong preference for the Serbian group as their dancing felt as if it was genuinely being done in a small village by people who know each other and enjoy each other’s company. By contrast, the Turkish dance, whether because I am not fond of the sounds of traditional Turkish instruments or the steps are so understated, seemed flat and out of context to me. Traditional folk dancing is a social act, like going on a walk with friends, and should express that context.

The Chinese and Russian troupes were more theatrical and performed more choreographed and sophisticated dances. They were both quite skillful whether in terms of the ability to jump, float around the stage or control their hand movements. Still, I enjoyed the Chinese more than the Russian. The reason may be that it was more novel to me, never having really seen Chinese dance before, but I also enjoyed the image being represented, life in the spring, I think. Between the costumes and the movement, it took me away in some manner. The Russian dances involved the standard songs and steps made famous by the Red Army Orchestra.  The steps involve primarily physical skill but seem, maybe unfairly, a cliché. In my eyes, performance dancing must somehow open our eyes to something new.

None of the performances were poor.  Yet, I preferred those that expressed a spirit, context or idea. As they say in Hebrew, על טעם וריח אין להתווכח  [Al ta’am vereah ain lehitvakei’ah], which means you can’t argue with taste and smell, or French, chacun à son gout; in short, in dancing, there is no accounting for taste, even if I try to understand my own.

The joys of detour

My wife and I hosted a group of translators and editors at our house this last week. Some seven colleagues travelled to Karmiel for an evening of conversation and enrichment, enriched by a short lecture by Uri Bruck on websites and Internet strategy. The group brought together a wide range of specializations, from literary to CNC as well as a wide variety of backgrounds.  It was a pleasant and fruitful gathering.

Upon analysis, the most striking element shared by the participants was the fact that everybody had “fallen” into translation after a successful career in something else. Otherwise phrased, each translator had acquired a body of knowledge in specific fields, including its lingo and techniques, and then began translating. Some of the previous (and current) lives that came up included nursing, teaching, machining and planning. While today more young people study translation as part of their initial higher education, traditionally translation has begun as a second career.

However, the timing of this choice is actually an advantage. When asked by aspiring translators about the elements of success in this business in the age of Google and machine translation, I emphasize this point: you have to be expert in some field in order to carve out a niche.  Language and process are unique in each field of endeavour. Once a person becomes a maven in an area, however narrow that field, the quality of the translation will lead to success. Linguists that do not understand a field, no matter how skilled they are in search techniques, simply cannot produce the same quality translation. By contrast, people with language skills can learn translation techniques at any time.

The old Carnegie Hall joke, “How to you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice!” applies in a different way to translation.  How do you have a successful career as a translator? Practice something else. Then practice translation.

Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash

Foggy mirrors

Dance is a form of expression reflecting the culture, value and symbols of its genre(s).  My home town, Karmiel, Israel, is blessed to host a dance festival every summer in which not only people can dance for two and a half days straight but visitors have a wide choice to view dance forms from all over the world (at a reasonable price). This year, my wife and I chose three very different styles: a (subcontinent) Indian modern dance group, Sarit Hadad and a Columbian Salsa group.  In each case, we were given in a peek into worlds far away from our own.

The Indian group, the Nvdara India Dance Company, performed something called Agami. It was an hour-long series of movements, generally but not always accompanied by music, some of it Indian-like, by some talented and well-condoned dancers dressed in dark, gray clothing. To be honest, they spend a lot of time rolling on the floor.  I know very little about Indian culture and not much more about modern dance. During the whole performance, I strove to try to identify the story and interpret the movements.  Alas, I did not succeed. Still, I left with the feeling that the performance has some content, even if I could not perceive it, and had gained from the exposure to a very alien world.

That evening, we saw the Israeli singer Sarit Hadad at the amphitheater. She is well-established singer famous for her love ballads, Arab style in Hebrew, I would describe it.  I have to admit, to quote from the name of an Israeli play, that I was there because of my wife. In any case, her fans, most of them female, quickly were near the stage singing, swaying and interacting with her.  I felt like a non-smoker of marijuana at a college party – missing the whole point.  Despite our good seats, it was quite hard to understand the words, which I was told was no great loss, similar to the love songs of the 1950’s. Although the genre was Israeli and lyrics in Hebrew, the content was in many ways as alien to me as the Indian dance.

The next day, we saw a Columbian group, Salsa Vita.  They performed various salsa dances with a short taste of tango.  The dancers were incredible, energetic and captivating.  The costumes were extremely colorful and sometimes quite minimal.  The variety of colors in the faces of the dancers, music and costumes made sure that there was never a boring moment. It was possible to see the open sexuality and Spanish colonial background of Columbia, something so different from the Middle East.

All in all, regardless of how much I enjoyed any of these performances, I was given the opportunity to expand my horizon. The reality may be distorted by the performer and the form. Still, I am much richer than before and look forward to next year’s looking glass.

The innocents aboard

This Rosh Hashana, the train arrived. I mean that the line between my home town, Karmiel, finally opened after many years of work, including a 2.3 kilometer tunnel, two new fancy stations with plenty of parking and bus lines from neighboring Arab villages to feed the stations. The Galilee is now connected directly by train to almost all of Israel, as far south as Beer Sheva. Given the ever worsening traffic jams in the once pristine North, it is a blessing for thousands of commuters.

Since it opened during the High Holidays and is free for three months to local residents, many people, including families with many children, have been taking advantage of the opportunity to travel for free.  It is interesting to see the excitement of many travelers, both young and old, when taking it for the first time. Although carriage and track transportation dates from 1825, the joy of countless faces was no less than that of playing with a new iPhone, a much more modern innovation. The exclamation “the train has arrived. I can’t believe it” is heard everywhere both on and off the train. The magic of the train lives on.

Unfortunately, in my eyes, Israelis behave in trains as they behave in home.  First, as a matter of comparison, I clearly remember a five hour train trip from Paris to Brittany. In addition to the quietness, possibly due to the fact that the cellular phone was not yet invented, I was shocked that I didn’t even notice that there were children in the carriage until some four hours in the trip.  Everybody sat quiet and passed the time in an unobtrusive manner. The Mediterranean being the Mediterranean, that self-control is not to be expected on an Israeli train. Aside from loud phone conversations and playing video games at full volume, parents let their children run up and down the corridor and play musical chairs. The blind, originally intended to block the sun, became a way of entertaining the smaller ones. The parents are not much better, albeit preferring to sit the whole trip.   Cutting the trip to Haifa to 30 minutes is nice but it is not that much more relaxing at this stage.

Still, I am optimistic that some of the excitement and annoying noise will decrease as people get used to taking a train. For all those working in Haifa and Tel Aviv or going to and from Ben Gurion Airport, the train is definitely a blessing. In the meantime, I may have to become modern and attach an earphone to my telephone and enjoy some music……

A Place in the Sun

Festivals are very important for the life and identity of small towns. They provide exciting, around the clock life to quiet and staid villages for a few days, which is generally enough for most of the locals, and an important source of income for the area. More importantly, they create an identity for that place: X, home of the Y festival. It doesn’t make a difference how unusual the theme is. What counts is to have a fun event to attract outsiders and break the monotony of the summer. Some of my favorite ones are the Scandinavian Festival in Junction, California, where everybody turns into a Viking; the fire ant festival in Marshall, Texas, where virtue is made out of necessity; and the garlic festival in Gilroy, California, where everybody is welcome except for vampires, I suppose.

Karmiel, my home for the last almost 30 years, is a small town of some fifty thousand people.  It is a great place to raise a family but, alas, rather quiet after nine o’clock in the evening. Fortunately, for the last 30 years, for some three days in the summer, it is filled with several hundred thousand dancers and dance lovers enjoying numerous venues, big and small, to both dance and watch dancing. The major theme is Israeli folk dancing, with dancing around the clock, but also includes Balkan (my favorite), salsa, ballroom, hip hop, to name just a few. In terms of performances, all styles of dance are available starting with the top Israeli groups and branching out to foreign ballet troupes, Israeli and world modern dance troupes, national dance companies and unique styles, such as flamenco. This year, my wife and I saw a modern dance version of Carmen by a Hungarian group and a performance by the Georgian national company. For three days, there was music in the air and lots of happy feet. The organizers even got lucky with the weather, which was much more pleasant than in most of the country.  I imagine quite a few of the visitors were not looking forward to returning to the humidity of the Tel Aviv and surroundings. Then, it ended.

Karmiel has returned to being a nice, quiet place to live. Still, when I mention my home town, people generally say, “Oh, where the dance festival is. What a beautiful place!” So, as I wait for my aching leg muscles to recover and the tennis courts to be restored to their normal function after the dancing, I appreciate the beauty of a good festival for both visitors and locals.

Singing nostalgic

Last Saturday, my wife and I went to a concert of French chansons in Karmiel arranged by the local French society. The singer, Brigitte Haviv, accompanied skillfully by an accordion, guitar and bass, sang songs from the Golden era of French songs, including golden oldies (as they say) by Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf, Charles Asnavour and Yves Montand. The small auditorium was packed. My wife and I, in our fifties, lowered the average age of the audience. However, what was lacking in youth was more than made up for in enthusiasm. People even dressed up elegantly, a rare sight in this part of the woods. The concert, more than an hour and a half, was a great success both for the singer and the audience. A good time was had by all.

That said, I had a very sad thought. If a non-French outside of France were asked to name a current French singer, band, or even song, I strongly doubt that even the most cosmopolitan would succeed. I am not saying that current French music is poor. Since it is not exported, it simply doesn't exist outside France. It may be due to the policy of foreign radio stations to play music in English and local languages but no more. It may be because that the French music has lost its identity. It even may be a result of the poor quality of music in France today.  I cannot say. What I do fear is that in some 40 years nobody is going to gather in an auditorium in a provincial town far way and listen nostalgically to the great French  songs of the early 21^st century. As a proud half-Frenchman, that makes me sad. I suppose the best thing I could do is to listen to some more Brel or Piaf. It would make me feel better but not change the reality. Isn't that the definition of nostalgia?

Israeli Training

I have chosen to live in the quiet north of Israel, affectionately called the "periphery" by official sources, for many reasons. One of them is the fact that the roads here are generally (still) open most of the day, rendering driving and breathing much healthier. Yet, I am occasionally obliged to descend to the center of the country for a day. To avoid the pleasure and fatigue of crawling in traffic jams, I take the train, which shall become even more convenient in a year when the train line to Karmiel is completed.

As any baseball statistician can tell you, nothing is perfect.  Even taking the train has its negative sides. Common with many systems, parking is often in shortage at the stations while the trains are often late. In other words, you know you are not in Northern Europe. An even more striking difference is the behavior of the passengers. As a measure of comparison, I remember taking a TGV from Paris to Quimper (Brittany), a trip of some four hours. The carriage was comfortable and quiet. In fact, I only noticed that there were quite a few children near me after almost three hours when I looked around. I recall thinking that the parents must have slipped their children some tranquilizer to get them to sit so quietly and for so long. Of course, the children's behavior followed societal expectations, which require even adults to avoid loud conversations and disturbing their fellow travelers.

Back to the Acco-Tel Aviv line, we have quite a different story. To be direct, children would be more tranquil than your average Israeli adult. Not that it is all negative. Upon a returning from a long flight abroad on a train from the airport, our train was stuck in the train station for almost an hour due to a suicide on the tracks (for which the train management was not responsible, clearly). The reaction of our fellow travelers was quite genial. Everybody took out some snacks and shared travel stories. If we could have lit a campfire, we would have done that. It was a rather happy delay.

Unfortunately, this openness is frequently not so positive. It is hard to identify which behavior is the most annoying. The candidates are long personal conversations about breakups or surgery conducted in the "privacy" of the carriage; personal attacks on train representatives with the poor luck of being in the carriage during a train delay; soldiers and students that create obstacle courses in the aisle by placing their cumbersome bags in strategic locations; parents that don't care if their children play noisy games on telephones or portable computers as long as they leave them in peace; and groups of youth that profit from the lack of parental supervision to sow their oats.

Don't get me wrong. With the correct attitude, any of the above actions can be entertaining and help the time go wrong. Also, many trips are quite unremarkable. To be fair, this behavior is not unique to Israel. Still, for me, the best solution is to limit my trips to Tel Aviv to the minimum and enjoy my quiet life in the north.

Roamin Times

To begin, I was a classic “wandering Jew”.  My relatives from at least two generations took their legs and immigrated to a different country, not always by choice. One grandmother went from Russian to the United States while the other emigrated from Poland to France. My mother left France for the United States. I came to live in Israel.  I am fairly certain that my daughter will leave Israel to live in the United States, which she likes more than I do. So, there is a genetic factor there.  From the time I left home to go to college to the day I started my life in Karmiel, Israel, a period of more than ten years, I never lived in any city for more than three years.  A short list of these cities includes Santa Cruz, CA, Paris, France, Los Angeles, CA, Eugene Oregon, Portland, Oregon and Ashkelon, Israel.  I didn’t have to join the navy to see the world and became a bit of an expert on how to get started in a new city.

That being said, I can safely say that all cities are not created in equal in terms of ease of entrance.  The key factor is the percentage of residents not born in the place. On one extreme, there are villages and small cities that you are still considered new after three generations because, to mangle Einstein, everything is relative. On the other extreme are places like New York and Los Angeles, where the sheer number of “foreigners”, both domestic and foreign, is so large that your source of origin is merely a way to start a conversation and of little other significance. A peculiar situation is Paris. Half of the city consists of French Parisians while the other half are outsiders, both French and foreign.  I was quite lucky being half French and half “ericain” that I could enter both worlds, that of my Parisian family and that of the temporary and permanent émigré community. I felt quite at home and would still do today even if I believe Paris is an unhealthy city to live due to the stress and diesel fumes, no matter how exciting it is be there.

My way of starting anew was to do what I enjoy, Balkan folk dancing. Wherever I went, I found the local group or groups, joined them and immediately had a social circle.  I once unashamedly (at the time) crashed a wedding a few days after my arrival in Portland, merely following my new found acquaintances to the wedding even though I had never met either the bride or groom.  Nobody said anything to me, whatever that means. Between my hobby, work and studies, I was able to quickly create a social circle. Being young, male and a good dancer didn’t hurt either. I suppose newcomers join churches and synagogues for the same reason.

I have now lived in Karmiel, Israel, a small town of 50,000 people in the north, for over 27 years. I have been married twice and raised my daughter here. Since the town was founded only in the late 1964, the number of native born residents is still relatively small. Curiously enough, I have no desire to roam anymore. During the Second Lebanese War, it was bit like the line of the Star Spangled Banner here, “And the rockets in air…” I preferred  being under effective house arrest in my own house in Karmiel than being at a five start refugee at a hotel in Herzeliya further south, much to the angst of my parents. I cannot tell you what exactly changed but my sense is that everybody has a time to roam and a time to create a nest. I enjoyed my days of exploration and appreciate my days of attachment. 

Regionalization in the Galilee

I have lived for almost 30 years in Karmiel in the Galilee. A recent shopping trip brought into focus a major change in the area: it is become an economic region, not the sum of a series of small towns and villages.

To demonstrate, my wife was looking for a dress for her daughter’s wedding. Searching on the Internet, she found some interesting dresses on a site for a store in a nearby Arab village. We went there and found a store that in terms of size has nothing to be ashamed of even if it were in Tel Aviv or Haifa.  At least half of the customers were Jewish.  Likewise, a few years ago, I needed some urgent tests on my heart. I was sent to a fully-equipped clinic staffed by a hospital cardiologist in an Arab village. 

This phenomenon is occurring throughout the Galilee. Beit Jann, once famous for providing recruits to the police and military, now specializes in cultural tourism, marketing its Druze heritage to tourists in Israel and abroad. Arab village businesses, whether restaurants or building supply stores, depend on Jewish customers.  Likewise, clothes stores in Karmiel, a “Jewish” town, cater to the local Arab taste in terms of color and style. A high percentage of the sales people are also local Arabs.  There is even a glatt (high level) kosher restaurant attached to a major Arab shopping center. This type of marketing attests to the wide customer base of all Galilee businesses.

The reasons for this economic linking include greater population, income and mobility.  The population of the Galilee has grown rapidly due to immigration and a high birth rate among Arabs. As education has improved in the area, so has income, allowing people to purchase more and fueling the regional economy.  Cars and drivers licenses are simply much more common. Owning is a car is now much more affordable than it was in the past. Moreover, Arab women are now getting drivers licenses, allowing them to expand their shopping base from outside their home villages.

The process in the Galilee is not “apartheid” as those ignorant critics accuse Israel, but unprecedented integration, which has created economic interdependence. I don’t expect this trend to stop in the foreseeable future.

Coexistence in the Galilee

Reality in the Middle East is either much simpler or complex than it appears.  Seemingly clear reality often becomes quite blurred when you start focusing on the details.  For example, the Galilee is divided more or less equally between Jews and Arabs and is an undisputed part of Israel.  Consequently, relations between the sectors are regular and peaceful. In other words, while there may not be integration, the Galilee is a place to show what coexistence can be. 

The problems begin with the definitions.  What are Arabs, just mentioning the main groups?  There are Moslems, Christian, Druze, Circassian and even Bedouin communities.  While all may speak Arabic, they share a long history of conflict and identify with different external communities.  Some serve in the army while others view the army as the enemy.  In fact, just recently, there was a large ethnic tussle in a village in the North between Druze and Muslims that resulted in many injuries.   On the other side, Jewish attitudes towards the local Arabs vary significantly depending on age (teenagers tend to be quite racist), life experience, ethnic origin (Ashkenazi vs. Sephardic), and political opinion. Moreover, many locals do not distinguish between the various communities. The level of trust (or distrust) as well as interaction can vary widely.

While it is clear that the Palestinians from the Judea and Samaria view all of Israel as Palestine, the attitude of the local Arabs is more complex.  According to studies and realities, they are proud of their Arab identity, speaking Arabic and not wanting to give up their community connection even if they do intermix with the Jewish population.  For example, at the college where I teach, the various Arabs speak Arabic openly and exhibit no “oppressed” behavior.  At the same time, I have never seen any refusal of students of different ethnics to work or talk with each other.  By contrast, there are certain limits.  Flirting with girls of the other religion is not looked on fondly by anyone.  Mothers of all kinds want their children to marry “one of ours”.  Recently, two local teenagers that reached the finals of a regional Arabic singing contest stated that they were from Palestine and expressed anti-Israeli opinions. From the other side, many Galilee residents do not view them as Israelis. It is clear that it is currently quite hard to maintain an “Israeli-Arab” identity.

The current coexistence is also far from uniform.  The dominant reality is that there is a strong economic necessity to live in peace.  Karmiel, the intended and actual capital of the Galilee, is surrounded by Arab villages.  Today, without Arab customers, most retail business in Karmiel would go bankrupt.  The same can be said for the businesses in the villages in terms of Jewish customers.  Even more, due to Shabbat labor laws and a better approach to service work, Arab workers provide an important source of employees, which helps the high standard of living in the villages.  Where economic interests apply, coexistence is the rule.  Yet, the police are very careful when entering the villages and arresting Arab thieves (one of the growth industries in the area).  Fights often break out on Friday night when Arab boys come to Karmiel and catcall Jewish girls.  Most seriously, every ten years or so, there are riots and rock throwing incidents, generally by younger people, “confirming” the distrust between the community. Still, according to a recent survey, almost 80% of Israeli Arabs would not move to a Palestinian state.  Apparently, life as an Israeli-Arab may be complex but has many positive points.

So, in fact the Galilee is an island of coexistence between Jews and Arabs, just as it seems.  In addition, it is also a spectrum of internal and external conflict between communities involving identity and interest that defies generalization.  In terms of future hopes, I can only quote the quaint Polish blessing, “May it not get any worse.”

War culture

Part of the Israeli experience, unfortunately, is the going through these overly frequent periods of mass military operations as a civilian.  The British of World War II and the North Vietnamese of the 1970’s are quite familiar with the sensations of random violence from the air.  It creates, no pun intended, a heavy atmosphere for even the most banal activity, regardless if your town is subject to or spared from the missiles.  For purposes of context, I live in Karmiel in the northern part of Israel. In my 25 years here, I have experienced on a first hand basis missiles during the two Iraq wars and the Second Lebanese War, including helping young daughter get through this.  I admit that my somewhat limited exposures does not compare with those living in Sderot  in southern Israel or Kiriat Shmone in northern Israel, but does provide some intimate knowledge of the joy of rockets in air.  Also, as in all crises, reactions are individual, varying from person to person.

The randomness and helplessness of being a civilian creates several common phenomena.  First, using official and unofficial information, people creates their “rules of safe behavior”.  On one extreme, this can mean never leaving the safe room.  On the other extreme, some individuals assume that life and death are just a matter of luck and go everywhere since it makes no difference.  My attitude under fire was that, based on my analysis of the cases of actual death by missile, my home is my castle, i.e. stay inside as much as possible to be safe. I believe that I am correct, at least statistically.

For those that leave the apparent safety of their house, the next issue is what to do if you are “caught” by an alert while driving or doing shopping.  Yes, people do need to eat even during a war.  In the former, there are several attitudes.  I admit that I used to keep on driving, counting on the laws of probability to keep me safe.  In other words, I have much less chance of dying from a missile than I have from a car accident.   The home front department advises otherwise: pull over, get out of your car, and hit the dirt or, if possible, get near a wall, covering your head with your arms.  I don’t feel scared enough to do that, but it does make sense.  If out in the city running errands, some people first check where the nearest safe room or stair case is, similar to parents with small children checking where the bathroom is. The opposite reaction is quite “human”: turn on the Smartphone video and film the whole event.  Logically, it is probably the most dangerous way to react, but instinctively it takes over if a person believes in immortality and is not actually frightened by the rocket.

The last issue I will address is dealing with the tensions.  People release their tension through one or more of the following physical manners: mashing teeth (dentists are quite busy after the war), eating more or less than usual, talking about their fears or insisting that the endless tension has no effect on them, constantly or never watching the news, or playing video games, to name a few.  I know that this stress does leave a scar on a person’s psyche, but so do one’s parents and childhood years in general for that matter.

So, war is hell, but a personal hell for civilians.  It is also part of an Israeli’s identity, distinguishing him or her from most other people.  From time to time, people will list the “wars” they gone through.  Sadly, my list is getting longer and will probably expand in the future.  As that optimistic Israeli goes, we also get through that.

The (Galilee) Spice of Life

I am a resident of the Galilee, the part of Israeli north of the (relatively) crowded center of the country and southwest of the Golan Heights.  Its topography varies from sea and agricultural plains to hills and forested peaks.  Its climate also varies, generally depending on the distance from the sea and the Sea of Galilee, known locally as the Kinneret.  Many tourists visit Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the Dead Sea, Eilat, and even the Bahai Temple in Haifa.  Generally they skip this highly diverse and interesting area.

One of its most striking features is its cultural diversity.  Residents of the Galilee include ultra-religious Jews, observant Jews, traditional Jews, non-observant Jews, Russian and Ethiopian Jews and sort of Jews, Messianic Jews, Christian Arabs, Muslim Arabs, Druze, Circassians, Greek Orthodox, and complete atheists.  A sensitive observer can identify each group by its clothing or facial features.  The various forms of head covering are generally a sign of identity.  Locals can tell from the accent or last name to which group the person belongs.  Amazingly, the vast majority of time, people get along and work together perfectly fine.  Money is a wonderful social glue apparently.  For example, the town where I live, Karmiel, is the commercial center for this part of the Galilee.  Many of both the salespeople and customers are Arabs from the local villages.  Likewise, many Jewish inhabitants appreciate the quality and price of the Arab restaurants in the area.  So, this heterogeneity functions rather well on a day-to-day basis.

In terms of language, the Galilee is a Tower of Babel.  In cafes, the listener can easily distinguish five languages here: Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, English, and even Yiddish sometime, not to mention the occasional French or Rumanian.  More importantly, local Arabs speak Arabic inside Jewish towns without any hesitation.  The local Arabic is also quite unique, especially among the Christian and Druze population.  It is heavily sprinkled with Hebrew words, often because of the extensive intercommunity commercial relations and/or service in the IDF in the case of the Druze.  This leaking of Hebrew also affects Russian speakers, especially those that have been in Israel for many years.  They are almost incapable of saying a sentence in Russian without a Hebrew word or two.  So, the polyglot can truly enjoy the sounds of the Galilee.

The picture is not entirely roses.  Many younger Arabs and Jews, often due to their living in separate communities in my opinion, profess strongly racist and/or nationalist opinions.  These issues sometimes arise when groups of Arab boys come into Jewish town on Friday or Saturday nights and start trying to flirt with Jewish girls.  On a more serious note, every decade or so, an incident ignites riots among the younger Arab population in the villages, creating mistrust that takes many years to repair.  However, to be fair, even within the communities, tensions run.  Muslims and Druze in Rama, Moroccans and Russians in Karmiel, and religious and non-religious Jews in Zefat are some examples of intracommunity schisms.  Still, all things considered, the Galilee has some components of the American “melting pot” experience (which was never completely a melting pot in itself, to be honest).

So, aside from its beautiful physical features, the Galilee is a fascinating site for social tourism, i.e. seeing how other cultures live.  In this case, the visitor can see how each culture lives in itself and in combination with the other residents of the Galilee.  I strongly recommend the experience.